Beyond Borders: Indians, Australians and the Indonesian Revolution, 1939 to 1950 rediscovers an intense internationalism — and charts its loss — in the Indonesian Revolution. Momentous far beyond Indonesia itself, and not just for elites, generals, or diplomats, the Indonesian anti-colonial struggle from 1945 to 1949 also became a powerful symbol of hope at the most grassroots levels in India and Australia. As the news flashed across crumbling colonial borders by cable, radio, and photograph, ordinary men and women became caught up in in the struggle. Whether seamen, soldiers, journalists, activists, and merchants, Indonesian independence inspired all of them to challenge colonialism and racism. And the outcomes were made into myths in each country through films, memoirs, and civic commemorations. But as heroes were remembered, or invented, this 1940s internationalism was buried behind the hardening borders of new nations and hostile Cold War blocs, only to reemerge as the basis for the globalisation of later years.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Part I. Seeing the Region
- 1. Everybody’s Revolution
- Internationalism and nationalism
- Forces for mobility
- Sources for the voices of workers, lascars, and sepoys
- Structure of the book
- 2. Connections and Mobility
- Colonial armies
- Cargoes
- Traders
- Seamen
- Australian perceptions
- Indian perceptions
- Who were the Indian seamen?
- Working together: Indian and Chinese seamen’s unions
- Part II. An Asian War
- 3. Dangerous Oceans: Merchant Seamen and War
- The Silksworth dispute, 1937
- The Dalfram and Pig-Iron Bob, 1938
- The Indian strikes of 1939
- The Atlantic Charter, 14 August 1941
- Building networks
- 4. Home and Away: Invaded or Under Arms
- Home: Living in the Japanese-occupied Indies
- Away: The Indian Army in Burma
- 5. Sharing the Home Front: Wartime Australia as Transnational Space
- War leads to rising awareness
- The India-Australia Association forms
- The famine
- Indonesians in Australia – then Australians in Indonesia
- Part III. The Boycott of Dutch Shipping
- 6. Boycotting Colonialism: Supporting Indonesian Independence in Australia
- Visions of new worlds
- Black-banning Dutch ships, 1945-47
- 7. Seeing the Boycott in the Australian Press
- Indonesian Independence in Australia
- The available stereotypes in Australian media
- The Boycott in Australia
- 8. Indian Perspectives: The Boycott as Anticolonialism
- The press inside India
- Forging a union
- Part IV. Fighting Two Empires
- 9. ‘Surabaya Burns’: Assault on a Republican City
- Surabaya, the Republican port city
- The 49th Infantry arrives
- The unacceptable British ultimatum
- 10. Frenzied Fanatics: Seeing Battle and Boycott in Australia
- Sources of news in the Australian press
- Narrowing the focus
- Indians challenge this imagery: Filming the Boycott
- 11. ‘The Acid Test’: Seeing Surabaya in India
- Sources
- Context
- Local issues
- Events of the Battle
- Bombardment narrows the focus
- ‘Extremists’
- Absent voices
- Part V. Aftermath
- 12. Breaking the Boycott
- Labour unity splinters
- Bad nullies
- Bringing back the Asian Articles
- 13. Trading for Freedom
- Freedom and censorship: weighing the costs
- Protecting Indian soldiers
- 14. Transnational Visions
- The tightening Dutch blockade
- To trade or not to trade…
- Trade after the Partition of India
- Part VI. Reflections
- 15. Remembering Heroes
- Conclusions
- Remembering heroes
- Implications
- Visions and afterlives
- Glossary
- Spelling
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Images
- 2.1 ‘Good Pals’ Gallipoli
- 2.2 T.D. Kundan in Surabaya, c. 1935
- 3.1 Komalam Craig in Sydney, 1939 (with unidentified man, possibly Hari Sahodar Singh)
- 4.1 P.R.S. Mani with the Maharaja of Cooch-Behar in Burma; Captain Mani (right, with journalist’s notepad) interviewing the Maharajah of Cooch-Behar, another Indian who enlisted in the British-led Indian Army to fight in Burma
- 5.1 Clarrie Campbell, Ada Boys, and Phyllis Johnson with unidentified Papuan seaman on picnic, c. 1944
- 5.2 Fred Wong with Phyllis Johnson. From left: Johnno Johnson, Phyllis Johnson, Fred Wong, his elder daughter Gwen, and two friends, c. 1945
- 6.1 Abdul Rehman (centre, seated) and Ligorio de Costa in discussion with Indonesian activists and Clarrie Campbell. From Left: Unidentified Indonesian, Ligurio de Costa, Abdul Rehman, two unidentified Indonesians, Clarrie Campbell. 12 Oct 1945, Tribune
- 6.2 Dasrath Singh, organizing secretary Indian Seamen’s Union in Australia. Published with the article ‘Dutch Gestapo Trail Indian’ 9 November 1945, Tribune
- 6.3 Sylvia Mullins being attacked by Dutch troops with a water hose during a demonstration on the Sydney docks against the British ship Stirling Castle, which was then taking Dutch troops to the Netherlands East Indies. 7 November 1945, The Sun
- 8.1 ‘When Gulliver Awakes’, 3 November 1945, Free Press Journal of Bombay. The cartoonist’s signature is illegible, but could have been RK Laxman
- 9.1 Street scene in Surabaya during a lull in the fighting, showing the Nationalist graffiti commonly written in English and Hindustani on the walls of buildings. Indian troops guard the inside of the building while, out in the street, Indonesian workers
- 9.2 Indian gunners with 3.7 inch guns near Surabaya
- 10.1 ‘Seamen Demonstrate at Dutch Shipping Company office’, 19 December 1945, SMH p. 4
- 10.2 Abdul Rehman and Clarrie Campbell taking part in the re-enactment of the activist pursuit of the Dutch ship Patras as it attempted to leave Sydney Harbour manned by a strike-breaking Indian crew
- 10.3 Indian unionists re-enacting the return of the Indian crew to Sydney Harbour after they mutinied on the Dutch ship Patras, convinced by the pursuing activists to join the strike. Although acting the parts of naïve, newly arrived Indians who were pre
- 13.1 T.D. Kundan (standing, second from right) toasting President Sukarno (second from left), undated, c. early 1950s
- 13.2 Free Press Journal of Bombay, 10 October 1946, upper section of page 1, showing context for Mani’s article on Indian defectors, ‘A New Unity Forged Abroad Among Indian Soldiers’ (top right column)
- 14.1 Clarrie Campbell, in 1971, hosting ten Australian women trade unionists including Phyllis Johnson (fifth from left in dark glasses) in the Singapore Automobile Club, of which Campbell was Vice President. 11 May 1971, Singapore Herald
- 15.1 Kundan’s name inscribed on Wall of Heroes, 2015: Number 48 in the second column from the left
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